Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Antibiotic Control Leads to Drop in Infection Rates in China

Contributed by Siddarth David & Dr. Tamhankar

Recent reports indicate that infection rates of MRSA have dropped. Surveillance
data from tertiary hospitals between 2010 and 2012 showed that the proportion
of outpatients receiving prescriptions for antibiotics decreased from 22% to
14.7%, and that of inpatients decreased from 68.9% to 54%, and the use of
antibiotic prophylaxis in surgical procedures decreased from 95% to 44.6%.

Professor Zheng Bo China Antimicrobial
Resistance Surveillance System said that "In many hospitals, the
rates dropped from 70 percent to 30 or 40 percent due to the strict controls of
antibiotics usage in recent years." The drop is attributed to the
strict policies adopted by China to control anti microbial resistance such as antibiotics are only obtained in drug stores with
a prescription and other steps towards systemic antibiotic stewardship.

This shows promise for countries like India, which have similar challenges with antimicrobial resistance and are formulating similar policies to tackle.